The context
Smart electricity grids play a crucial role in the current energy transition, enabling better integration of the renewable sources of energy into the grid and a more efficient use of energy altogether.
The EU-funded project ebalance-plus will develop smart-grid solutions to increase the energy flexibility and the electric grid observability, providing new services for distribution grid operators, transmission system operators, aggregators, energy retailers, DER managers, building facility managers, prosumers, and consumers, empowering them with more functionalities to interact with the grid and manage the energy flows.
Aims of the project
The aim of the project is to increase the use of flexibility and resilience of energy networks, by means of an energy balancing platform, which will integrate smart production, storage and consumption technologies.
This energy balancing platform is based on a fractal-like hierarchical architecture that replicates the existing grid topology with a bidirectional communication framework, assuring the scalability of the solutions.
Our approach is to unlock and increase the energy flexibility from buildings and districts and make it available for DSO management.
The project will test a variety of solutions at four real demonstration sites located in Spain, Italy, France and Denmark. Additional laboratory testing in Germany will address safety issues.
Another important aspect of the project is its social and market orientation. From the outset, the project takes into account users’ needs and concerns in terms of energy usage and innovation. This increases the chances of the market adopting the technology.
The project work plan covers a 4-year period and involves 15 partners from 10 countries who perform research, analysis, evaluation and exploitation to achieve future replicability.
Expected impact
Unlocking building and district-level flexibility
Smart grid solutions to predict, unlock and increase available flexibility
Resilience of distribution grids
Smart grid solutions to increase the resilience and reliability of distribution grids based on energy flexibility
New business models for the energy market
Innovative opportunities for the main market stakeholders based on the developed technology solutions
Expected results
A modular and scalable energy-management platform
Energy flexibility mobile app
Smart storage solutions to unlock and manage building flexibility
Prediction models for energy flexibility forecasting
Cloud-based grid optimisation platform
Integrated smart hubs
Solar car parking, battery energy storage and V2G electric vehicle charge management
Grid control and automation units
Control and optimisation models for energy management systems
Key technologies
Learn more about our key technologies
Partners
Discover our partners